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-> While the above statement (that you arent likely to be attacked) may be true, it is also a fact that while whats on your machine may not be particularly important to someone in the scheme of things, your machine may be used in an attack on some other victim. If , for instance, you are an IRC user, and your security (especially in a Microsoft environment) isnt high enough, an attacker may first gain control of an IRC router, then use that router to search for an endless array of easily-acquired zombie agents (like maybe yours) to launch his attack on another person or company. So while your individual computer might not be important, think of the bigger picture. It sure wouldn't be nice to have someone DDoS some corporation or govt site only to make it look like it was you.

Obey All Orders Without Question...The comfort you\'ve demanded is now mandatory. --Jello Biafra

-> While the above statement (that you arent likely to be attacked) may be true, it is also a fact that while whats on your machine may not be particularly important to someone in the scheme of things, your machine may be used in an attack on some other victim. If , for instance, you are an IRC user, and your security (especially in a Microsoft environment) isnt high enough, an attacker may first gain control of an IRC router, then use that router to search for an endless array of easily-acquired zombie agents (like maybe yours) to launch his attack on another person or company. So while your individual computer might not be important, think of the bigger picture. It sure wouldn't be nice to have someone DDoS some corporation or govt site only to make it look like it was you.

Obey All Orders Without Question...The comfort you\'ve demanded is now mandatory. --Jello Biafra

Antivirus software searches for known viruses, trojans, and worms. It also detects when programs attempt to make changes to vulnerable areas of a system. Firewalls are only as good as the person configuring them. It would be a good idea to close all ports not being used by programs you run online, such as messaging applications. To answer your question, a hacker would start by obtaining your ip. How he does this is anybody's guess, some attain a specific person's ip for the sake of launching an attack against them for a specific reason. Others search through random ip's, testing each for specific vulnerabilities. After attaining a person's IP an attacker would do what is called "port surfing" this means searching for open ports on a system, either manually or aided by a port surfer program that searches them sequentially, starting at 1 and counting up. Depending on the services he finds open he may use any security flaw he finds to gain access to an entire system. This is why it only takes one computer with a security flaw to compromise the integrity of an entire network, an attacker can use full access to one computer to gain access to another. My advice, be careful what you download, close your ports, update antivirus regularly, and don't piss anyone off. As far as DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service) a person uses access to many computers remotely, sending useless data packets called pings to a single address, the victim's. all of these pings are barely noticed by the computers sending them, they are tiny, like a hum of activity in a quiet corner of a crowded room, but to the computer recieving them from multiple locations, it is overwhelming. A client-side firewall (one on your computer, not a server) can do nothing to protect against these because once the packet is recieved, the bandwidth has already been used. These are pretty hard to protect yourself against so I reiterate: DONT PISS ANYONE OFF. Good day.

Antivirus software searches for known viruses, trojans, and worms. It also detects when programs attempt to make changes to vulnerable areas of a system. Firewalls are only as good as the person configuring them. It would be a good idea to close all ports not being used by programs you run online, such as messaging applications. To answer your question, a hacker would start by obtaining your ip. How he does this is anybody's guess, some attain a specific person's ip for the sake of launching an attack against them for a specific reason. Others search through random ip's, testing each for specific vulnerabilities. After attaining a person's IP an attacker would do what is called "port surfing" this means searching for open ports on a system, either manually or aided by a port surfer program that searches them sequentially, starting at 1 and counting up. Depending on the services he finds open he may use any security flaw he finds to gain access to an entire system. This is why it only takes one computer with a security flaw to compromise the integrity of an entire network, an attacker can use full access to one computer to gain access to another. My advice, be careful what you download, close your ports, update antivirus regularly, and don't piss anyone off. As far as DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service) a person uses access to many computers remotely, sending useless data packets called pings to a single address, the victim's. all of these pings are barely noticed by the computers sending them, they are tiny, like a hum of activity in a quiet corner of a crowded room, but to the computer recieving them from multiple locations, it is overwhelming. A client-side firewall (one on your computer, not a server) can do nothing to protect against these because once the packet is recieved, the bandwidth has already been used. These are pretty hard to protect yourself against so I reiterate: DONT PISS ANYONE OFF. Good day.